Shadow Ticket Group Read 2026

[Mark Kohut]

I like that comparison but as I crawl among the first ten pages I see that
by page 3, Pynchon has shaped the 'case" via a woman with whom Hicks has
some history, just as
Doc had his pining-for old flame....

I wlll withhold until later, after we've shown many connections to his
other books, how much Pynchon echoes his earlier work in tropes
and characters and themes....
the shadows within this book so to speak...

On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 9:51 AM rich <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> I see Hicks as a Benny Profane type character, bounced around by
> circumstance and higher powers, unlike say Doc or Maxine who follow leads
> and have a bit of agency. His remit keeps changing and is basically lost
> throughout the novel, though he does meet some rather interesting people
> along the way.
>
>
>
> On Thu, Jan 8, 2026 at 4:17 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Is Hicks a Hick?....I read it this way before I looked up any etymology
>> for
>> Hicks
>> or Hick....A hick, like Hicks derives from the name Richard.Hick meant
>> commoner
>> like a hansom driver before the 17th Century.....the name/nickname does go
>> back to the 14th Century.
>> By the 17th, it was a putdown, meant an unsophisticated country boy, a
>> rustic....
>>
>> Preterite echos, origins.? Shadows of?.....certainly 'organic community'
>> -adjacent origins and meanings...
>>
>> When I got my copy and plunged into the first 35- 50 pages like I used to
>> read young; like I
>> jumped into Against the DAy or Inherent Vice I liked the prose so
>> much....a
>> smooth--all those commas like waves, -- distilled wit everywhere...
>> this old man of eighty-eight writing as if it was his first novel,
>> springlike prose and nary a discouraging word....I might even say like
>> Shakepeare's
>> magic comedy at the end of his shorter life: The Tempest......A twitter
>> guy
>> and I shared this feeling about it....something different in his style, we
>> agreed.
>> Can't describe it better than lamely like this....
>>
>> His name: from grounded here to eternity, so to joke allude.
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>>
>